The Metro: Line 5 tunnel debate intensifies in Lansing

, August 26, 2025

Tribal members and environmental advocates delivered letters urging Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and EGLE Director Phil Roos to reject Enbridge’s Line 5 tunnel. EGLE’s comment window on wetlands and bottomlands permits closes Friday.

Enbridge seeks to build a tunnel around a replacement section of the Line 5 pipeline that runs through the Straights of Mackinac.

Michigan’s iconic crossing, the Mackinac Bridge, and below it the focus of a statewide debate: a proposed Line 5 tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac.

The debate over a new oil tunnel for Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline landed at Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s doorstep this week.

On Tuesday, tribal members and environmental advocates delivered letters and handwritten comments to the George W. Romney Building in Lansing. The notes urged Whitmer and EGLE Director Phil Roos to reject the proposal beneath the environmentally sensitive Straits of Mackinac.

This followed a virtual briefing that activists held with EGLE staff that was punctuated by a display of thousands of folded paper fish, a nod to the Great Lakes’ fragile ecosystem.

Enbridge Energy says a concrete-lined tunnel deep beneath the lakebed would minimize spill risks and ensure energy reliability. 

“Enbridge is working with state and federal agencies to study and develop plans that will minimize and mitigate impacts to the natural environment, natural resources, cultural heritage and community priorities,” wrote Enbridge’s Ryan Duffy in a recent statement emailed to WDET.

Duffy said Enbridge “will build the Great Lakes Tunnel safely, in conformity with thorough safety and environmental reviews by permitting agencies.”

Opponents say the plan threatens wetlands, locks Michigan into fossil fuel reliance for decades, increases carbon emissions, and infringes on tribal treaty-protected waters.

Sean McBrearty of Oil and Water Don’t Mix joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss the coalition’s specific request and the evidence behind its concerns.

Share your thoughts on Line 5 

EGLE’s public comment period for the permits tied to wetlands and bottomlands closes this Friday, August 29. Here’s how to add your voice:

Editor’s Note: Enbridge is a financial supporter of WDET. Our newsroom observes a clear boundary between funders and editorial content, and we do not serve the agendas of those who support us.

 

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Authors

  • Robyn Vincent
    Robyn Vincent is the co-host of The Metro on WDET. She is an award-winning journalist, a lifelong listener of WDET, and a graduate of Wayne State University, where she studied journalism. Before returning home to Detroit, she was a reporter, producer, editor, and executive producer for NPR stations in the Mountain West, including her favorite Western station, KUNC. She received a national fellowship from Investigative Reporters and Editors for her investigative work that probed the unchecked power of sheriffs in Colorado. She was also the editor-in-chief of an alternative weekly newspaper in Wyoming, leading the paper to win its first national award for a series she directed tracing one reporter’s experience living and working with Syrian refugees.

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